“AIR GOLD”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 36, 12 February 1937, Page 5

“AIR GOLD”

A THRILLING SERIAL STORY

By

L. W. BROCKMAN

By the time Jimmy's term of service was nearly finished, the young man looked upon Somerfoell as something vile and unclean. He wanted to make him -suffer to the full for all the evil he had done. The Count of Monte Cristo had been the favourite etory of tits boyhood, and he liked to picture himself wreaking some picturesque and horrible vengeance on his employer. Ths idea of killing the man, however, had never occurred to him. Killing was murder, and however deserving of eueh a fate the victim might ba, Jimmy was no murderer.

Then came news that intensified his hate a thousand-fold, and made him decide that whatever the consequences ho could do no less than remove once and for all the man that was a menace not only to himself, but also to humanity in general. Iha elder slater, Muriel, by careful investment of a small legacy, had managed to keep Langfields, tbe small family estate, intact, and lived there in modest comfort with Kathleen, who, when Jimmy left for South Africa, had been a mere child of sixteen.

The young man knew all about industrial depressions, but he did not realise that they had a nasty habit of changing steady four and five per sent investments into dead money. Neither did he appreciate the fact that leggy, loose-limbed girls of sixteen often change In a matter of two or three years into very beautiful end desirable women.

Muriel hid her own troubles from her brother until the position became desperate, then she wrote a letter that reached him just as he was counting the few weeks that were to pass before he booked a passage back to England. It. was this letter that gave definite form to his resolve to make Somerbell suffer, made him decide that there was nothing to bo done except to kill his enemy.

The letter comprised many closely written pages. The main points of it can ba told in a very few words: Muriel had been forced to relse money to meet the growing gap between the very modest expenses of the two girls and the shrinking dividends, and the only security she could offer was the house. The place that to her particularly, and to Jimmy after he had been so long away from it, was more precious than life itself, was In a surprisingly short time, mortgaged to the hilt.

Tbe letter went on to tell of Kathleen. Muriel was most discreet and careful, but she managed to convey to her brother the fact that the younger girl was acting the fool much as he had done a little earlier, although the details were, of course, different. “You must not Jump to hasty conclusions, Jimmy dear,” the letter ran. “There is no vice in Kathleen. She is a good girl, but «o headstrong and thoughtless. I am sure ehe is gambling, Just as you did, dear boy, but then It la so different in a man. She says that Pouclng is too quiet and slow, and that she wants to see life while she Is young. ‘ If only she would stop to think where she Is heading, we could manage to get along fairly comfortably. And i now there Is this man, Somerbell. .

By some freak of chance, it appeared, Kathleen had met Somerbell, and the latter had no sooner seen her than he had desired to marry her. ]t had been easy for him to find out the position of the two girls, and very soon he had armed himself with a big stick to wave over their heads. He purchased the mortgage on Langfields, snd used this alternatively as a bribe and a threat to force Kathleen to marry him. As was to be expected, with a strange contrariness, Jimmy Keen’s homeward voyage was prolonged through unusually bad weather, and by the time he stepped ashore he was fuming with Impatience to be at grips with Somerbell. The train journey, on the other hand, calmed him, and allowed him to get a grip of himself. He was not prepared to forego, or even defer, his venegance, but he was In a somewhat calmer mood when he stepped on to the platform. He would, he told himself, leave his baggage at the station, then find a quiet little place where he could enjoy a much needed meal. There would be a few hours to while away before he could go to Somerbell’s palatial establishment at Hampstead with any reasonable hope of finding his enemy at home. There was no need for him to go lo an hotel; if his mission was successful he would go home to Pouclng by the late train.

He had not given much thought to his possible fate after he had dealt with Somerbell. but there was at the back of his mind a vague caution that told him not to make himself unduly conspicuous. Langfields was the safest place for him. The very fact that he was an ex-employee, and that he had returned from South Africa, would lead the police to examine his movements. He might be caught—lf so, well, he would not worry. He would have removed Somerbell from all possibility of doing further evil, and would have made the future safe for his sisters.

There! was a small legacy that came to him on his twenty-fifth birthday, and Muriel had r reversionary Interest In It. From a financial point of view there would be little to worry them if they could weather the Immediate present. The finding of “a quiet little place’’ where he could eat was not so easy as Jimmy had expected. He had successfully avoided the rush hour, but his arrival had coincided with an unusual Influx of country visitors, and these, too, sought quiet little places. At last he found a small establishment that seemed to suit his requirements, and he chose a secluded corner and made known his modest desires.

He entered the restaurant with a single though! In his mind to arrange for the killing of his enemy. He had no other Interest. The fate that had led him to pass a dozen other similar establishments, however, had also directed the meanderlnss of the girl who sat awaiting service a few yards from him. There was a suspicion of posing in

the way In whteh the young man *iad shed his outdoor clothes and settled to his table. His gaze was tense and direct, but It was deliberately aimed above the heads of the other occupants of the room. Moreover, his order was given In crisp slipped sentences end with an exaggerated air of disinterestedness. He eould not eat with his eyes on the ceiling, however, and It was when he glanced, perhaps a little Indifferently, at the' food in front of him, that he first noticed the girl. There had been girls in South Africa. Those In the towns were little different from their English cousins, except that their complexions were affected by the greater amount and power of the sun. The girls of the open veldt, with whom he was better acquainted, were, In the majority of case®, strong, vigorous specimens of womanhood, scarcely less hardy and capable than their brothers. Jimmy had not been Indifferent to either low? or country women, but. he had no particular preferences, snd although he admired them ss a whole, not one had interested him sufficiently to make him single her out for attention. The girl in the restaurant was. In some subtle way, different from all that he had ever met —that Is, she was different in his eyes. There was nothing of Angela about her. Viewed solely from a point of view of feminine beauty, she could be compared with the girl who had previously enslaved Jimmy’s heart. Yet there was about her something that In the other girl had been entirely lacking. She had character, and the outward signs of It were in her eyes, in the flrm set of her small mouth and chin, and In the lack of self-consciousness In her pose. The young man found himself thinking particularly of her gracefulness. He wanted to see her walk. He was sure that even dressed In rags she would attract attention In a crowd, she would be queenly. He looked away hurriedly, as she glanced up, but he had time to notice that her eyes were violet, not blue, and that her long lashes gave to Ihem a strange mistiness. He had never seen eyes quite like them, and even when he gazed steadfastly at the food before him lie could still see them staring at him with a strange wonder and appeal In them. Possibly he imagined the appeal. He was still very young and, coming from a colony, he felt something of a hero, something different from the thousands of town dwellers that thronged around him and made his progress along the pavements slow and uncomfortable.

Still posing, unconsciously no doubt, he toysd with his meal, and stole sidelong glances at the girl. She did not appear to have noticed him. In faot, she seemed strangely alone and content to remain so. Then a slightly overawed family of provincials crept to a table between the two, almost completely blocking Jimmy’s view. The newcomers discussed the menu in stage whispers, and behaved generally as they would have done in a church—a strange ch uroh—and the young man, finally giving up all hope of seeing the girl between the bobbing heads, settled to await her departure. Perhaps some chance might help him to make her acquaintance as she left the restaurant Then came thoughts of Morell Somerbell, and of his mission. He had been fooled by one woman, and now’ he was calmly—nay, anxiously—contemplating making the acquaintance of another, and all but forgetting that his duty to his sisters, to his fellow men, even to himself, demanded that he should kill Somerbell Immediately. He hardened his heart, and strove manfully to keep his glance from wandering towards the girl with the violet eyes. He finished his meal somewhat hurriedly snd glanced at his watch. There were still some weary hours to pass before he went to Hampstead, but he must not tarry so near to her. He could not trust himself any longer. Unfortunately for his resolution, circumstances were too strong for him. jle suddenly became conscious of a disturbance on the further side of the family party. At first he vaguely supposed that little Willie had had an accident with a tea-cup, or that the noisy Edith had committed some unpardonable breach of party manners. Then he realised that the family, far from being the central figures, were Indeed Interested and awed spectators of something that was happening at the next table. He tried hard to see what was afoot, without making his Interest apparent to others who were trying to do the same thing, but he was unsuccessful until one of the children, not schooled in the niceties of correct behaviour on such occasions, slipped from Its chair to get a closer view of the free entertainment.

It was then that Jimmy saw and was able to grasp the situation. The high colour of the girl’s face was evidence of her distress and embarrassment, and In front of her stood a rather Important manageress doing her best to be very firm and threatening while still remembering the fact that the establishment over which she ruled claimed to be superior to and of a higher tone than the branch of a multiple shop next door. In front of the girl lay a handbag. It was open, and empty. The girl said something and pointed helplessly to the bag. The manageress answered, making It plain that she was sceptical. To Jimmy, the situation was at once clear. Having been absent from London for a long time, he ha<’ developed some of the provincial idea that the capital was a very wicked place. Obviously the girl had been robbed, her bag had been picked, and now’ she was without the wherewithal to pay for her meal. Not stopping to consider what ho was doing, or to realise that he was drawing unwelcome attention to himself, he hastened to the girl’s table and bowed gallantly. “Can I bo of any assistance?” he asked in a voice that was strangely unreal even to himself. (To be continued)*